


Watching

by Santhe



Series: Random Word Prompts- Oneshots [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Land of Mounds and Xenon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santhe/pseuds/Santhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi can see, and her world is turned upside down.<br/>Karkat knows, and he wants to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of one shots I'm doing with any of the Homestuck ships I like and a group of four random words from a website. This one's words were orange, number, wings, and bucket.  
> Haha of course the ship with Karkat ended up with the word bucket.

You watch him until he’s a speck on the horizon of the first planet you’ve set foot on in the last three years. You watch him. Watch. It’s a new verb for you, and not a comfortable one. It was so much better when all you could do was smell. And you still can do that, scenting the sweetness of orange sherbet wafting off his wings, ruffled from his feathers at every movement, but it’s different now. Less potent, less important, when you can confirm every fact with your eyes. Because you, Terezi Pyrope, can see.  


  
You shake your head and press your face into one hand, covering the world in the usual darkness, and stifle a sob, clutching tight to your cane, another ridiculous and absolutely useless piece of equipment, now that you can see. A weapon, you remind yourself. It’s still a weapon. So you should definitely keep it.  


  
Your cape, still draped over your head and shoulders, gives off the scent of warm, comforting red. Sometimes you think it smells more like candy, but you’re trying to ignore the sweetness right now, because the cape smells all too strongly, even to the normal nose, of Faygo. You curse the Faygo, the sticky patches it left on the fabric since your last loss of control, the troll who gave it to you, the relationship you have with him.  


  
You’re so distracted, in fact, cursing Gamzee and his vile drink, that you don’t even smell Karkat until he touches your shoulder. You spring away with a yelp, dropping both hands to the cane and immediately regretting it as the too-bright light floors your retinas yet again and you squint at him. He looks oddly subdued.  


  
“So what did the feathery asshole want?” he grumbles. You eye his face. Seeing expressions again… that’s one of the weirdest parts. And you’ve forgotten how to read them like that. You slide your lids shut and take a deep whiff- much better. Reset, he feels resentful. Of… Davesprite? Really, Karkles?  


  
Shrugging, not wanting to set him off right now, you say neutrally “Not a lot, just the news and stuff.”  


  
Karkat’s disbelief smells sour as he mumbles “Can’t believe there’s another one. As if one insufferable prick wasn’t enough. Look out world, here comes the fucking rap marathon, better put on all your damn shades cause it’s gonna be so. Fucking. Cool.”  


  
You stifle a snort of amusement. Typical Karkat. He’s even friends with Dave at this point, and still never shuts up about how annoying he is. And he’s got a point, the cool-kid thing does get a bit old after three years. Just like being rad. Cool is better than rad though, of course. Not that you’re either. You drop your head, letting gravity pull the cape back over your face.  


  
“Terezi, why are your eyes shut?”  


  
“What?”  


  
“Your eyes. You can fucking see, why don’t you look around?”  


  
You open them just long enough to glare at him, but suddenly you don’t want to look away because you need him to understand. “It’s not… I don’t like it.”  


  
“What do you mean, you don’t like it? What’s not to like?”  


  
“I told you. Being blind is part of who I am. It’s… it’s like I’m not me, when I’m seeing things instead of smelling them.” Your voice catches a little and you groan inwardly. The last thing you need is another get-emotional-with-Karkat session. He just saw you without your pants on, for crying out loud. How much more personal does he need to get?  


  
You know he’s worried about you. You can smell the worry well enough, bittersweet and sad, and he practically said it flat out when he found you not more than a few hours ago on top of the meteor. Passed out, pants less, and as Dave sometimes calls Rose, ‘drunk as a skunk.’  


  
“It’s not gonna go away, you know.”  


  
“What?”  


  
“Your sight. It’s not just going to up and leave, just like ‘Yeah, well, had a fucking great time while it lasted, later assholes.’” You blink at him in surprise as his voice lowers to practically a whisper for the last part, like he’s scared to say it. “And it’s not like Vriska’s around to blind you again.”  


  
You wince a little at the not-so-subtle reminder. “Thanks, Karkat, that makes me feel much better.”  


  
He swears quietly and tries again. “That’s not what I meant, I keep forgetting that you…” He thinks better than to finish that sentence, which you’re guessing held another reminder of the friend you killed. And you hear him breathe, trying to collect himself, remembering what you just told him, about how you still feel bad about it. How you still wish you didn’t have to do that. How you still wonder if there was another way out.  


  
“Look.” He says finally. “I can’t… I don’t like to see you like this. Just… hiding from yourself, hurting yourself this way. And as I know like, pretty much all of it is my fault-“  


  
“Your fault?” you glance at him critically, though not really surprised. He does like to take the blame, this one. “How is any of this your fault?”  


  
“If stupid past me had kept up the moirallegance with Gamzee, maybe you two wouldn’t have… you know. Stayed… together. And if I hadn’t been such a dick to Dave, I don’t know, maybe you two would have, uh, worked out. And then at least you’d be happy.” He sounds so regretful when he says that, so angry at himself and so very, very unhappy. And a little bit of you is annoyed for him blowing out of proportion his role in your life, but another part feels bad for him. Irony Dave would be proud of. Here’s Karkat trying to make you feel better by dropping the blame on himself and it’s making you feel bad that he’s sad about you being sad.  


  
This conversation is stupid, you decide.  


  
You shake your head and pick probably the worst thing going through your mind to say. “Nah, don’t think that would have worked out anyway.”  


  
“Huh?”  


  
“Me and Dave. He’s a good friend and all, but I don’t know if he’s really matesprite material.”  


  
If you shut your eyes, you know you could smell the candy red blood rushing into his cheeks, smell the tension growing between his shoulders as he discussed this topic that annoyed him above all others.  


  
“Why were you talking to the weirdly orange bird version then?” So bitter.  


  
“Told you, just passing around news.” And because you’re getting tired of serious, irksome Karkat, you pull at it a little bit. “Sides, even the normal Strider couldn’t fill a bucket, never mind bird version.”  


  
Karkat makes an odd noise and you grin at him, glad for just a second to have the ability to see the confusion, anger, and way too complicated emotions that he pulls out at just the mention. He tries to say something and chokes on it a number of times and you feel your grin widening to its usual. Or what was its usual before a game destroyed your world and a clown started honking and your cane was dyed blue and you met the better Pyrope and your eyes learned how to see again. Before you lost track of what made you Terezi.  


  
And you’re glad suddenly, glad for one thing at least: glad that of all the trolls that died, this one did not. This one stayed with you the whole way and is still beside you now, and you think maybe, just maybe, there’s a little piece of the happy, confident Terezi left.  


  
A little piece that you think Karkat has kept safe for you, all this time.  


  
He finally succeeds in speaking. “I’m… not sure buckets mater as much now.”  


  
He’s looking at you sideways, cheeks flushed, waiting for some sign from you, something that says it’s not all gone. “Still. I guess I’ll stick with trolls for now.”  


  
When he reaches out his hand to guide you back to the group, you take it without hesitation.


End file.
